Holiday Best Wishes

Here are my best wishes for your holiday season. May there be peace, joy, giving, and thankfulness as you celebrate with family and friends.

We’re having a quiet, white Christmas at our farm in Pennsylvania. I’m giving the birds extra seed and the neighbors the Christmas cookies my Mom used to make.

Thanks for reading this blog. I enjoy writing it—sometimes for reasons that are selfish. It’s a great place to try out new ideas—things I’m thinking about, tentative new insights and understandings. I am always happy when I find something I think you’ll find useful. New ideas are the lifeblood that keeps our teaching healthy and effective. I keep thinking maybe I won’t find any more. I’ve been searching them out for many years now, but so far there’s still a ready supply. That there is still more to be discovered and known about teaching and learning attests to their intrigue and complexity.

So I’ll keep writing and hope that you’ll keep reading, but not again until the first week in January. Meanwhile, let the festivities begin!

No, there is never a shortage of ideas. I won't go so far to say that all of them are good or even should be tried, but statistically when we have such a flow some good ones are bound to come along.

Now that said, I would also suggest that if you haven't read Thomas Kuhn, do so. He's the philosopher that popularized the word "paradigm", but was quick to point out that a discipline's best ideas usually come from those outside of it primarily because they don't know enough to NOT ask the stupid questions.

The real value that The Teaching Professor delivers is probably because its readers come from so many different disciplines. Sure, I might be a "teaching professor" but my main focus is logistics and competitive strategy. I don't do pedagogical research, but many of my best teaching ideas are ones that I adopted after stubbing my toe on them elsewhere.